Mlle. Titiens was such a firmly established favorite of the English
public that, in the line of great tragic characters, no one was held
her equal. The most brilliant favorites who have arisen since her
star ascended to the zenith have been utterly unable to dispute her
preeminence in those parts where height of tragic inspiration is united
with great demands of vocalization. Cherubini's opera of "Medea," a work
which, had never been produced in England, because no soprano could
be found equal to the colossal task of singing a score of almost
unprecedented difficulty in conjunction with the needs of dramatic
passion no less _exigeant_, was brought out expressly to display her
genius. Though this classic masterpiece was not repeated often, and
did not become a favorite with the English public on account of the
old-fashioned austerity of its musical style, Titiens achieved one of
the principal triumphs of her life in embodying the character of the
Colchian sorceress as expressed in song. Pasta's _Medea_, created
by herself musically and dramatically out of the faded and correct
commonplace of Simon Mayer's opera, was fitted with consummate skill to
that eminent artist's idiosyncrasies, and will ever remain one of the
grand traditions of the musical world. To perform such a work as that
of Cherubini required Pasta's tragic genius united with the voice of
a Catalani, made, as it were, of adamant and gold. To such an ideal
equipment of powers, Titiens approached more nearly than any other
singer who had ever assayed the _rôle_ in more recent times. One of
the noblest operas ever written, it has been relegated to the musical
lumber-room on account of the almost unparalleled difficulties which it
presents.
It is not desirable to catalogue the continued achievements of Mlle.
Titiens season by season in England, which country she had adopted as
her permanent home. She had achieved her place and settled the character
of her fame. Year after year she shone before the musical world of
London, to which all the greatest singers of the world resort to obtain
their final and greatest laurels, without finding her equal in the
highest walks of the lyric stage. As her voice through incessant work
lost something of its primal bloom, Mlle. Titiens confined her
repertory to a few operas such as "Trovatore," "Norma," "Don Giovanni,"
"Semiramide," etc., where dramatic greatness is even more essential than
those dulcet tones so apt to vanish with the passage of youth. As an
oratorio singer, she held a place to the last unequaled in musical
annals.
In 1875 Mlle. Titiens visited America, on a concert and operatic
tour which embraced the principal cities of the country. She was well
received, but failed, through the very conditions and peculiarities of
her genius, to make that marked impression on the public mind which
had sometimes, perhaps, been achieved by artists of more shallow and
meretricious graces. The voice of Mlle. Titiens had begun to show the
friction of years, and though her wonderful skill as a vocalist covered
up such defects in large measure, it was very evident that the greatest
of recent German singers had passed the zenith of her fascination as
a vocalist. But the grand style, the consummate breadth and skill in
phrasing, that gradation of effects by which the intention of a composer
is fully manifested, the truth and nobility of declamation, that repose
and dignity of action by which dramatic purpose reaches its goal
without a taint of violence or extravagance--in a word, all those great
qualities where the artist separates from the mere vocalist were
so finely manifested as to gain the deepest admiration of the
_cognoscenti_, and justify in the American mind the great reputation
associated with the name of Mlle. Titiens. On her return to Europe, she
continued to sing with unimpaired favor in opera, concert, and oratorio,
until she was seized with the fatal illness which carried her off in
1879. Her death was the cause of deep regret among musical circles in
England and on the Continent, for she left no successor in the line
of her greatness. So far as any survey of the field could justify a
judgment, liable at any time to be upset by the sudden apparition of
genius hitherto hampered by unfavorable conditions, Mlle. Titiens was
the last of that race of grand dramatic singers made splendid by
such beacon lights as Pasta, Malibran, Schröder-Devrient, Grisi, and
Viardot-Garcia.